Two researchers from the University of Waterloo working on potential ways to target and kill cancer cells and a new understanding of gravity won prestigious Polanyi Prizes today.

Drew Bennett, of the Department of Chemistry in the Faculty of Science at Waterloo, received the prize for chemistry for his research that has the potential to target treatment for people suffering from diseases such as cancer, HIV, Parkinson’s and bacterial infections. Eduardo Martin-Martinez, from the Department for Applied Mathematics and the Institute for Quantum Computing at Waterloo is recognized for his research examining the interconnections of gravity and quantum theory.

“These awards are the highest honour that researchers can achieve from the province of Ontario,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of Waterloo. “We have created the environment here at the University of Waterloo for people to conduct fundamental research into some of the world’s most pressing problems. These Polanyi Prizes give us an indication that our extraordinarily talented people are on the right track to solving these challenges.”

The Polanyi Prizes were created to celebrate John Charles Polanyi’s 1986 Nobel Prize, and the areas of research they recognize mirror those of the Nobel Prizes. The Ontario government awards $20,000 the winners—post-doctoral researchers in the early stages of their careers.

“The province has been loyal to these prizes for over a quarter of a century, believing that the soil of Ontario is suitable to the cultivation of Nobels,” said Professor Polanyi. “The province is saying something far-sighted, namely that it values the free inquiry essential to discovery. For that, Ontarians owe them a debt of gratitude.”

Drew Bennett

Drew Bennet'Drew Bennett’s research has the potential to improve treatment for those with serious diseases such as cancer, HIV, Parkinson’s and bacterial infections.

While promising advances in nanoscale biotechnology are making new drugs and therapies possible, a major hurdle for the effectiveness of known drugs is the ability to target specific diseased cells.

Cancer cells, for example, have negatively charged surfaces. However, throughout nature there are peptides—or small proteins—that are positively charged and help our bodies fight infections.  

Bennett’s research uses computer simulations to produce physics-based movies of how individual molecules interact with each other. The simulations provide insight into how peptides target and penetrate cell membranes. The goal is to design new peptides that target and penetrate the membrane of diseased cells, and deliver specific drugs to ultimately kill them.

Bennett’s research will mean a better understanding of peptides, which will hopefully allow delivery of emerging treatments for cancer and other major diseases directly into specific cells, enhancing the success of known drugs and allowing for the development of new therapies.

Eduardo Martin-Martinez

Eduardo Martin-MartineEduardo Martin-Martinez’s research explores a new field that combines the two most fundamental pillars of physics —quantum theory and general relativity—to understand the nature of the gravitational interaction and to build new technology that breaks the boundaries of what we thought was possible.

Quantum technologies currently under development will eventually hit a limit, just as today’s computing devices are about to reach their classical limits. Martin-Martinez is one of a handful of researchers already investigating what’s beyond quantum.

Martin-Martinez uses quantum information to study gravity’s effects by combining strands of quantum information science and quantum field theory with general relativity. The research not only helps us to better understand spacetime structure, but could one day help explain how spacetime curvature and quantum theory impact information processing – an important element in quantum computing.

Martin-Martinez was the first to defend a PhD thesis in the field of Relativistic Quantum Information (RQI) and is currently a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute for Quantum Computing and the department Applied Mathematics. He is also a Perimeter Institute Visiting Fellow.

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